Dr. Ahmed G. Abo-Khalil

Electrical Engineering Department

Floating wind farm

As of September 2011, Japan plans to build a pilot floating wind farm, with six 2-megawatt turbines, off the Fukushima coast of northeast Japan where the recent disaster has created a scarcity of electric power. After the evaluation phase is complete in 2016, "Japan plans to build
as many as 80 floating wind turbines off Fukushima by 2020." The cost is expected to be in the range of 10-20 billion Yen over five years to build the first six floating wind turbines. Some foreign companies also plan to bid on the 1 GW large floating wind farm that Japan hopes to build by 2020. In March 2012, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry approved a 12.5bn yen (4m) project to float a 2MW Fuji in March 2013
and two 7MW Mitsubishi hydraulic "SeaAngel" later about 20–40 km
offshore in 100–150 meters of water depth. The Japanese Wind Power
Association claims a potential of 519GW of floating offshore wind
capacity in Japan.

As of November 2011, Statoil plans to build a multi-turbine project in Scottish waters utilizing the Hywind design.